Get Off Your [Donkey] and Help Someone

Here's a presentation by Reggie McNeal that should be required viewing for all church leaders in North America.


Reggie McNeal Main Session Unleashed Conference 2010 from Unleashed Network on Vimeo.

Pastor Rod

Rethinking the “Day Off”

My exploration of missional living has led me to rethink the idea of taking a day off from ministry.

One the one hand, missional living must seep into every part of life, or it is not missional living. If we construct levees to hold back the river of ministry to a particular place or a particular time, then we can hardly consider ourselves missional.

Yet Sabbath is a deep value throughout the biblical narrative. The meaning of Sabbath is rooted in the creation account. And Sabbath-keeping became the identifying mark of God's people in the Old Covenant.

(I'm not endorsing Sabbatarianism. As it is typically practiced, I think it misses the point of the Sabbath.)

When we look at the example of our Lord, a "day off" seems entirely out of place.

For example: can you imagine Jesus ever taking a day off from teaching his disciples? He seemed to go out of his way to perform miracles of healing on the Sabbath. He frequently sought out solitude, but we have no indication that he observed any kind of weekly schedule with breaks from "ministry." And when his solitude was interrupted, he did not run people off with some line about it being his "day off" as Messiah.

However, most pastors are too busy and overstressed.

The last thing they need to hear is that they need to be "on" 24 hour per day, seven days a week. Perhaps the idea of being "on" is part of the problem.

It would seem that a pastor needs to discover a way to live that he can maintain indefinitely.

But how can this be done? Ministry too often feels like a job—with a starting time and an ending time. Pastoral families often are neglected (or worse) for the sake of church work. And most pastors can't wait to get time away from their church.

Perhaps part of the problem is that they have "created a church they don't like or wouldn't attend."

Here's one of the dirty secrets of pastoral ministry: We try to get people to participate in activities that we participate in only because it is our job.

Participating in the kingdom should be meaningful, rewarding, enjoyable, life-giving, fulfilling and satisfying.

• If we have to bully people into participating, something is wrong.
  
• If we have to bribe people to get them to participate, something is wrong.
  
• If we have to baby people to keep them participating, something is wrong.
  

But if the pastor doesn't find his ministry meaningful, rewarding, enjoyable, life-giving, fulfilling and satisfying, no one else will.

Yet a missional approach to ministry demands selflessness. It requires us to be other-focused. How does this square with a view of ministry that resembles a vacation in Sicily more than it does working in the coal mine?

Then there's the airplane-oxygen principle. If I am not "taking care of myself," then I cannot be of much help to others.

But does this mean that I should be selfless for six days and then reserve one day to be selfish?

How would I take a day off from ministry without taking a day off from following Christ?

Can I clock out of my calling once a week?

If my calling is "full-time," then my ministry must also be full-time. How, then, does Sabbath fit into full-time ministry?

First, the lives of Jesus' disciples are to be characterized by rest.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:28–29).

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his (Hebrews 4:9–10).

There should be an ease that permeates our lives, including our ministry. We cannot save the world. That is God's job. Even when we are "struggling with all his energy" (Colossians 1:29), our lives should exhibit peace, joy and patience.

Second, many of the things we do to "take care of ourselves" do not deepen our souls and strengthen our spirits. Most of us do not have enough solitude in our lives. Yet when we have a "day off," we fill it with noise and commotion and call it "unwinding."

Third, if our view of ministry is healthy, then we will not feel "entitled" to some time off. Too often we do double-entry bookkeeping with our ministry efforts. We build up a balance of "things for others." Then we draw down that balance in personal indulgence. Ministry should be fully integrated into our lives. Paul says, "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3:17). If we really understood what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, it would not be possible for us to take a day off from ministry.

Fourth, we need space in our lives. We need space to process our thoughts and our feelings. We need space to speak with our Father. We need space to hear his still, small voice. Busyness, activity and anxiety are the enemy of depth and spiritual health. We need more than a day off from meetings, programs and commotion. We should build solitude and reflection into our schedules. That is something we see Jesus doing regularly.

So here's my plan (for now): I no longer talk about a day off. But I keep my schedule free of most obligations on Mondays. I approach every encounter with others as an opportunity for ministry. (At least that is my goal.) I give myself permission to take a nap if I get tired. I try to do things that I enjoy with others.

We'll see how well this works. So far it seems to be working.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

One-Buttock Leadership

Watch this engaging video of Benjamin Zander at TED. (HT: Rex Miller).

What are the implications for leadership?

• Leaders must stay focused on the vision.
  
• If everything is important, nothing is important.
  
• The leader must stop thinking about every note and concentrate on "the line from B to E."
  
• While the details are necessary, they should not be given too much focus.
  
• A mechanical approach to anything is rarely engaging.
  
• A leader has power only as he or she helps others powerful.
  
• A leader can tell if he or she is awaking possibility in other people if their eyes are shiny.
  
• A leader's success is measured by the number of shiny eyes.
  

A missional leader will stay focused on God's grand story and be surrounded by shiny eyes.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Forgetting to Breathe

It goes without saying that our efforts to promote our individual congregations "are nothing if God isn't working through them."

Kevin Hendricks tells us:

It's like breathing. Life doesn't work so well if we forget to breathe. That's how I see the role of God in church growth--or any of the marketing and communications we talk about.

He reassures us that methods are just methods, as long as we rely on God:

Trying to bring people to Jesus should never be about mindlessly following a set formula. We certainly have to do our part, and that may mean following a standard formula, but we also need to rely on God to work through that formula. Notice that the reliance is on God, not the formula, and as long as we rely on God there's nothing wrong with the formula.

I used to think like this and talk like this.

But I've since repented of my stupidity and my self-delusion.

There are several problems with this kind of thinking.

First, breathing is automatic. Under normal circumstances, people don't need to think about breathing. Relying on God is far from automatic. It requires focus, concentration and a degree of self-discipline. The default attitude is to trust in ourselves and in our "formulas."

Second, methods are not just methods. Every strategy is based upon several assumptions. We often use methods and strategies that are not consistent with the essence of the gospel. For example, motivating people through guilt or pride is an affront to the good news of grace.

Third, this kind of thinking is at its heart based upon the deadly misappropriation of God's mission as our mission. It is not our job to convert people. It is not our job to save the world. It is not our job to build the kingdom. It is God's mission in which he has invited us to participate.

Fourth, we have narrowly defined making disciples as getting people signed up for heaven. We assume that fulfilling the Great Commission is equal to increasing the weekly attendance at our church.

Fifth, this approach easily becomes a cover for ego-driven "ministry." I make all these great plans and ask God to bless them. I use my God-given skills and God-given resources to produce results. I give God credit for what happens. But this ends up being the same as an actor in his Oscar-acceptance speech thanking his parents because "this wouldn't have been possible without you."

Depending upon God and living missionally do not happen automatically.

• All our natural instincts work against us, especially our egos.
• Our materialistic, consumer culture distracts us from focusing on God's kingdom.
• The busyness and stress of "ministry" squeeze out the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit.

Relying on God requires

• Intentionality (The first step must be to intend to trust in God.)
• Commitment (We must practice the spiritual disciplines that will allow the Holy Spirit to produce his fruit in our lives.)
• Focus (We must cut through all the distractions.)
• Trust (We must let go of the feeling that it all depends upon us.)

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

This Is Not Your Father’s World

The hymn "This Is My Father's World" uses an antiquated view of the universe as a poetic device:

This is my Father's world,

And to my listening ears,

All nature sings and round me rings

The music of the spheres.

"The music of the spheres" comes from the idea that the earth was surrounded by rotating, transparent spheres upon which were fixed the sun, moon, stars and planets. And these spheres operated according to ratios similar to those found in reflected in the harmonic scale. No one still believes that the earth is the center of the universe or that the sun rises and sets every day, but we still use that language metaphorically.

The key is that we know this is figurative language. It doesn't shape our actual perception of the world.

Every fifth-grader knows that the geocentric view of the universe was replaced by a heliocentric view. Johannes Kepler then refined the sun-centered model by discovering that the orbits of the planets were ellipses rather than pure circles.

A similar transition has happened in the world of communication.

Marshall McLuhan popularized the phrase, "The medium is the message." The point is that the method we use to communicate is at least as important as the message we think we are transmitting. As new communication media appear, they also shape the culture.

M. Rex Miller has written an analysis of these changes from the perspective of the church. The Millennium Matrix suggests that the way we store and distribute information changes our worldviews.

At the time of Jesus, the culture was oral. This prevailed until the advent of the printing press which gave birth to a print culture. Television ushered in the broadcast culture. Finally, computers and the Internet produced a digital culture.

The book contains a detailed matrix of the various cultures and their characteristics. (A brief PDF version can be found here.) For example, in the oral culture truth is relational. The credibility of a message is based on the credibility of the messenger. In the print culture truth is based on principle. Logic and other tools of deduction are used to verify the message. In the broadcast culture truth becomes existential. The message is validated through experience. In the digital culture truth is contextual. Community tests and validates reality.

We'll return to some other aspects of The Millennium Matrix, but first I want to make clear that this is not a generational analysis.

In 1990, I attended a seminar sponsored by The Church Growth Institute called "How to Reach the Baby Boomer." It was based upon research described in the book Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation, by Landon Y. Jones. This seminar had a profound impact on the North American church.

The idea was that Baby Boomers had similar experiences and expectations. Formulas could be devised to reach them with the gospel and to get them involved in attending church. Demographics became an essential tool in church growth. The seeker-driven model was canonized. Consumerism became the focus of church programs and ministries.

This approach was so "successful" that church leaders tried to adapt it to the following generations. Various names were suggested (gen-x, busters, MTV generation, millennials) but none of these really caught on. Furthermore, those who followed the boomers were not as monolithic in their attitudes and experiences. Many of their characteristics were seen as reactions to the values of the boomers.

The church growth industry produced strategies, methods and programs to reach these generations. But something just didn't click. These approaches were not as effective.

Into this milieu came the emerging and missional movements. The resulting confusion has left pastors and denominational officials baffled to this day.

First, they tend to see these movements as identical. Even though there is considerable overlap between the emerging and missional movements, they are significantly different.

Second, they tend to view them as a generational phenomenon. While many of the people who make up these movements are younger, they are not simply expressions of age and shared experiences. In fact, many of the key figures in these movements are boomers.

We now live in a world where generational analyses are less and less useful.

It is important that The Millennium Matrix not be understood as a description of younger generations. It is rather a description of the world in which we all live. Yes, some older people still try to live in the print and broadcast cultures. But we all live in a digital age.

Let's look at the way the oral, print, broadcast and digital ages view leadership.

In the oral culture the leader is a steward. The steward acts as a caretaker for the entire household as a representative of the owner, fulfilling his intentions.

In the print culture the leader is a manager. The manager uses command and control, division of labor, and vertical integration to maximize efficiency and production. The assumption is that people need to be structured and tightly supervised to be productive.

In the broadcast culture the leader becomes the inspirational leader. The focus becomes releasing the potential of individuals.

In the digital culture the leader becomes a facilitator. Management takes on a less definable structure and acts more like a web of collaboration.

The church still seems to be enamored by the larger-than-life leader. (See Joel Osteen.) Yet the digital culture requires something very different:

Congregants in the emerging digital culture are hungry for leaders who are approachable, touchable, accessible, transparent, and real. They want to connect with someone who is unscripted, unrehearsed, and not "on." They want a real person who walks among them, not someone who periodically comes down from the mountain to deliver a prescription for life or platitudes of hype.

M. Rex Miller, The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church, pp. 154–155

The values of these cultures are also different. The oral culture valued reliability. The print culture valued productivity. The dominant value of the broadcast culture is quality. The highest value of the digital culture is creativity.

In the print and broadcast cultures, community is a technique.

Community becomes a strategy, a means to retain the numbers, instead of the end or the purpose from the very outset. That inversion seems to be an inherent trap that many churches focused on numerical growth succumb to.

M. Rex Miller, The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church, p. 260

But in the digital culture, community is the goal.

If what we offer is a weekly experience or presentation that does not raise the urge or provide the opportunity for connection resulting in community, then we might as well take down our label as church and proclaim our facility a house of religious entertainment.

M. Rex Miller, The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church, p. 182

Miller suggests that the church needs to embody eight values in the digital age:

• Agility
  
• Authenticity
  
• Cohesion and balance
  
• Resiliency and forgiveness
  
• Sustainability
  
• Open-endedness
  
• Accessibility
  
• Collaboration
  

This book does not provide the final word on the factors that shape our world and the context in which the North American church finds itself. But it does provide important insights and raises significant questions.

But remember, this is not our Church or our mission. It is God's. We are not charged with saving the world. It is not our job to devise the ideal strategy.

Our responsibility is to be aware of the world in which we live, to be open to the various ways in which God is working in that world, and to be willing to assume the role that God calls us to.

While this is not your father's world, it is your Father's world:

O let me ne'er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the ruler yet.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Rest After Struggle

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "I wouldn't give a fig for the kind of simplicity which exists on this side of complexity, but I would give the whole world for the simplicity that exists on the other side of complexity."

I've thought a lot about my changing views about the role of pastor. I've wondered what I would do differently if I could start all over.

• I'd focus more on people and less on tasks.
  
• I'd resist the pressure to have all the answers.
  
• I'd be more "wasteful" of my time.
  
• I'd learn to enjoy the present and not mortgage it for "someday."
  
• I'd let go of the dream to "make something of myself."
  
• I'd enjoy life more.
  
• I'd worry less about what other people think of me.
  
• I'd be more open to see God working in unconventional ways and in odd places.
  
• I'd be less of a lecturer and more of a poet.
  

The problem is that I'd probably make the same mistakes all over again.

In fact, I wonder if it's possible to get to the proper kind of rest without going through the struggle.

Jacob had to struggle with God before he could quit playing the trickster and receive his blessing as "Israel" (Genesis 32:22–31).

• It is only after we try and fail that we are we ready to listen to a different way.
  
• It is only when we recognize that we are sinners that we are ready to accept a Savior.
  
• It is only when we exhaust all the other options that we are ready to rest in God's grace.
  

One cannot be a poet without experience. It seems that we don't know how to live until we die.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Just Enough Time

The official song of our culture is "I Need More Time."

We live under the delusion that our problems would all be solved if we just had more hours in each day. There's just not enough time to get everything done. If only we had just a little more time.

But as Parkinson's Law tell us, "Work expands so as to full the time available for its completion."

However, work is not the only thing that expands. If we had more time, we would tend to fill it in the same way that we do the 24 hours we get every day.

We see this dynamic in computer storage capacity. In the past 30 years hard drive capacity has increased by about a factor of 1,000,000:1. But instead of having abundant free space, we've filled up our drives with music, videos and mega-pixel photos. John Dvorak may be an early adopter, but he voices a complaint that we can all indentify with: "I filled a terabyte drive with crap; now I need another terabyte drive."

Besides being metaphysically impossible, manufacturing more time is not the solution.

Enter the GTD cult.

Since we can't have more time, we must get more out of the time we have.

What was once known as time management has now become an entire industry. We have planning notebooks, software, blogs, newsletters and clothing to help us make the most efficient use of the 86,400 seconds that slip through our fingers every day.

Now we are not just overwhelmed with stuff to do, but we also feel guilty because we are not productive enough. We feel the angst of opportunity cost for all the things we should do that we never get to.

This problem is especially bad for pastors and other church leaders. Our "opportunity cost" has eternal consequences.

It's no wonder then that 1500 pastors leave the ministry each month and 50% of all pastors say that they would leave but have no other way of making a living.

So what's the solution?

Clergy renewal centers call us to pay more attention to our own spiritual development:

More than anything, God has called pastors to have an intimate relationship with Him. That must come before the ministry, that must come before the congregation, and that must even come before the family. As you can plainly see from the statistics above, we literally cannot survive in the ministry without taking the time to be with the Lord.

If we, as ministers, don't have an intimate relationship with the Lord, how can we expect to have anything to minister to others? Our congregations don't need yesterday's warmed over breadcrumbs. They need the fresh meat and manna for today. But, you know what? We need that too.

Unfortunately, we pastors tend to hear this as just another thing we should do, another thing that we can't get to. So we try to do more devotional activities and schedule time for retreats. But these good intentions go the way of our diet and exercise plans. Before we know it, we're just as busy as ever—and even more guilt ridden.

There are several things that contribute to this culture of perpetual busyness and constant stress.

Most Protestant congregations have unrealistic expectations for their pastors.

Pastors can NEVER do everything right. If we visit the hospital then we either stay too long or not long enough. When we preach we either are too shallow or too hard to understand. When we are at the office we either need to be in deep study AND also be available for every phone call, e-mail and every random person that happens to drop by. When we walk through the crowd we spend too much time with some people and not enough time with others.

And denominational officials try to "get the most out of" those under their direction.

Abused pastors tend to perceive the denominational office as having a "fire the coach" strategy.

Many of these beaten up pastors (and their abused families) just play the game of "churchical chairs," moving on to a new field every two to three years, only to find the same battles, just with new faces. Tragically, many just give up and walk away from the call that God once placed so vividly upon their lives.

But the main source of stress and pressure is the mindset of the pastors themselves.

Many pastors have a Messiah complex. They have the notion that everything depends upon them. They talk about grace, but they have no experience of grace.

Our culture canonizes workaholics. And ministry workaholics are raised to an even higher level. Overwork is seen as dedication, commitment and sacrifice.

But at the heart of this obsession is ego.

Buried deep in the psyche of many leaders is a Superman mentality—the idea that somehow there are a few of us that can function beyond normal human limitations and save the world. Or at least our little corner of the world. This is a grandiosity that we indulge to our own peril.

Dallas Willard suggests that church leaders need to let go of the illusion that everything depends upon them and to "release the world and [their] fate" to God's care and keeping. But this may be the most difficult challenge these leaders face.

For leaders, a decision to release the world and our fate to God runs contrary to everything within and around us.

Consequently, one of the greatest blessings a pastor can experience is failure.

If we are not very successful in ministry, in whatever way we measure success, then God does not have a hard time getting us out of the way. . . . The burdens of office may have become so heavy that we welcome being bumped aside by Jesus.
Andrew Purves, The Crucifixion of Ministry, p. 25

Once we resign as Messiah, the true Messiah can take over.

Ministry is no longer about us and our skills. It is now about the real presence of Jesus Christ.
Andrew Purves, The Crucifixion of Ministry, p. 16

If we feel that we have too much to do, it is a sign that we are not trusting God.

• It is not our job to save people.
  
• It is not our job to change the world.
  
• It is not our job to build the Church.
  

So how do we break the grip of this ego-centered, compulsive, workaholic approach to ministry?

Here's a hint: Exodus 20:10.

The Sabbath for the Israelites had one overriding purpose, to continually remind the people that their future was in the hands of God. They were not allowed to be productive for one entire day every week. They were forced to do nothing.

I'm not advocating the keeping of a literal Sabbath. For many people (e.g. the Pharisees) the keeping of a Sabbath quickly turns into a legalistic obligation.

One of the great dangers in the process of spiritual formation is that self-denial and death to self will be taken as but one more technique or "job" for those who wish to save their life (soul).
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 67

Sabbath-keeping is just one example of the kind of spiritual discipline that reminds us that God is in control and we are not.

Another spiritual discipline that addresses the problem of "grandiosity" is solitude.

Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, and loneliness. You will see that the world is not on your shoulders after all. You will find yourself, and God will find you in new ways. Joy and peace will begin to bubble up within you and arrive from things and events around you.
Dallas Willard, The Great Omission, p. 36

Ironically, the cure for the feeling of not having enough time is to set aside time to do nothing.

Once we assume our proper place in ministry, we begin to realize that we have just as much time as we need. Eventually, we learn to live with the relaxed urgency of Jesus.

Jesus was willing to adjust his personal schedule to give time to anyone who began to follow him. He was accessible, adaptable, and capable of showing love and attention.
Arthur Glasser, Announcing the Kingdom, p. 210

If we give up the job of trying fix everything, then we can take the time to be present to the people around us. And we have all the time we need to be loving and caring to those that God sends across our path. We don't have to solve their problems. We just need to be with them and do what we can with the resources that God makes available to us.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Sour Grapes

In the classic Aesop tale, the fox, unable to obtain a juicy bunch of grapes, convinces himself that he really didn't want them in the first place.

To many, my incessant nattering about the false idol of success will appear to be little more than the whining of a jealous pastor who secretly wants to trade places with a mega-church pastor with a book contract. There is probably nothing that I could do to dispel that perception (except to turn down the offer of a book contract, which I probably wouldn't do).

Let me suggest the possibility that there is really something else going on here.

Pastors are increasingly seen as administrators who must manage by objective, and church growth is thought to be the result of human engineering. We even measure our spirituality by the work we do. This "spirit of human management" is one of the "powers" that we must challenge if we are to recapture a biblical vision of the church and of society.

Paul Hiebert, "The Gospel in Our Culture," in George Hunsberger, The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America, p. 145

The church is being held captive by "the powers" against which we fight (Ephesians 6:2). Contrary to folk interpretation, the armor of God does need protection in the back--to defend against "friendly fire."

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

The Prince goes to church

A Machiavellian Primer on Church Growth

• The greatest moral good is the preservation of the church (denomination).
  
• Any actions to preserve the church (denomination), no matter how cruel, are always justified.
  
• The only real concern of the pastor (denominational leader) is the acquisition and maintenance of power.
  
• The pastor (denominational leader) must do whatever is necessary to keep his power.
  
• The pastor (denominational leader) should seek to be feared and loved, but it is more important to be feared than to be loved.
  
• During a siege a pastor (denominational leader) will "keep the morale of his subjects high while removing all dissenters."
  
• The authority of the organization must be supported by a show of power that makes obedience inevitable.
  
• While the pastor (denominational leader) comes to power by his own initiative, skill and talent, it is useful to convince others that he is under divine appointment.
  
• Most followers do not want freedom. They want security. The few who want freedom can be bought off with honors or eliminated.
  
• A pastor (denominational leader) must contrive to earn for himself the reputation of a great leader.
  

It may seem to some that these principles are extreme. But let me reassure you that they are practiced in many places within the western church. While they are never stated so explicitly, these principles are currently being taught in leadership books and seminars.

Just as sports fans are ultimately responsible for the absurdly high salaries of star athletes, consumer Christians are complicit in maintaining this situation. They flock to the church or denomination that has the most visible trappings of success. They ignore the machinations of the leaders because "they are doing so much good."

God have mercy on us.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Straight Talk on Evangelism

Michael Spencer has some interesting comments about evangelism from a missional perspective. Here are a few that resonate with me.

When a large church pastor starts lecturing small churches about their lack of evangelism, you should change the channel, because the guy is mainly being a jerk toward a lot of faithful ministers and Christians in more difficult situations.

How many faithful, talented, sacrificial church planters and pastors find they can't go on? And some places are just hard. Where did we get the idea that every community can have a great church if church planter Bob will just do the right things?

Small churches have a tough time seeing converts. So does any church these days. We aren't in a time when people are joining Christianity. We're in a time when tens of millions are walking away from it. We're in a time when thousands of Christians are going from this church to that. The faithful pastor may be seeing converts or not. You're going to have to look deeper.

God builds the church and God counts the fruit.

Then K.W. Leslie makes the following comment:

This all goes back to the fact that pastors and evangelists are seeking a worldly model of success rather than a Kingdom model: They're looking at numbers, size, and influence. They're not looking at Jesus.

If they asked Him what He wanted in their ministry, they'd be a success in His eyes, but they don't want that—they want numbers, size, and influence. Supposedly once you have that, you can further the Kingdom, even though Jesus told us to seek the Kingdom first, and then you get the other things.

Amen.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

No Time for Losers

I doubt that Queen's "We Are the Champions" has been included in any church hymnals, but this philosophy has found its way into much of Christianity.

I consider it a challenge before the whole human race—
And I ain't gonna lose—

We are the champions, my friends
And we'll keep on fighting, till the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers
'Cause we are the champions of the world

Brant Hansen has put his finger on this sore spot within the church with his insightful sarcasm.

There's no getting around it: God is a winner. Therefore, to be a Godly man, you have to win...at everything.

Winners win on the field, and in the pulpit. They can't stop winning. Everytime they turn around, they win.

God wins, and I didn't get into ministry to lose. Did you get into ministry to lose? Did you go to seminary and announce in chapel, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm here to lose at ministry, because I'm a big loser"?

Jesus wasn't some namby-pamby guy like in those movies...as if Jesus [w]as some guy who walked around, hung out with a bunch of losers, and just stood there while people beat him up.

Scholars, including Dr. Josh McDowell and Dr. Joe Weider, believe Jesus could probably bench 300 more than 20 times, and squat 700 plus. Some "pansy", huh? Yeah, right! Jesus was pumped. Scholars agree, he was like Mr. T, except white.

But the truth is that Jesus had plenty of time for losers.

This is one of the things that got him into trouble with the establishment. Jesus would hang out with the losers. And from most every perspective, Jesus was a loser himself.

By definition, anyone crucified on a Roman cross is a loser.

Of course, that is not the end of the matter. On Sunday morning the tomb was empty. Jesus overcame death, Satan and sin. But this victory was not accomplished by some comic-book-hero scenario. It was won through defeat. Jesus won by losing.

The church he established was not for winners. It was composed of losers and made to rescue the losers of the world.

Jesus has plenty of time for losers, like you and me.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

It’s Not My Job

When we hear the statement, "It's not my job," we assume that someone is shirking responsibility. Someone like the road stripper who left this evidence (HT: TonyRogers.com).

But I've found that "It's not my job," can be a helpful response for a pastor.

I'm not talking about taking out the trash, shoveling the walk or sweeping the floor. Jesus showed by his example that no one should consider himself "above" menial tasks.

There are many things that pastors wrongly take responsibility for. Sometimes this happens because they have a messiah complex. Sometimes this happens because they want to please people. Sometimes this happens because they are strangers to grace.

Here's a list of things that I've finally realized are not my responsibility.

• It's not my job to make my church grow. All I can do is to be faithful in the charge that God has given me. When I start trying to make my church grow, I forget that only God can produce lasting growth. Just using the phrase "my church" can be dangerous.


• It's not my job to rescue people. I can care for people. I can give them assistance. I can listen to their stories. But I do not have the power to fix what is wrong with them. (I don't have the power to fix what is wrong with me.) When I try to rescue others, we are both likely to drown.
  
• It's not my job to convert people. Jesus commissioned his disciples to make disciples. We generally reduce that to getting people signed up for heaven. With this mindset, we start setting goals, quotas and sales projections. Before we know it, we are giving people the hard sell, for their own good of course. But I cannot save anyone. I cannot even convince them that they need to be saved. All I can do is proclaim the good news and show them what a life lived by grace looks like.
  
• It's not my job to collect power and wealth. We have so westernized Jesus Christ that we've completely forgotten that he was poor and apparently powerless. It's hard to make the connection between this meek itinerate teacher and the modern business ventures that use his name.
  
• It's not my job to plan out the future. We're all familiar with the business mantra: To fail to plan is to plan to fail. We've been taught to create the future with our goals and plans. We certainly need to be prepared for the future. But we cannot make it conform to our plans any more than we can program a child to turn out exactly the way we think is ideal. We can't even predict the future with any degree of certainty. Why do we think we can shape it to our specifications?
  
• It's not my job to secure my own significance. I am not significant because of what I've done or what I'm doing. I'm not significant because of who I know. I'm not significant because of who knows me. I am not significant because of how many people hear me preach or read my blog. I'm not significant because of what I've done for God. I'm significant because God loves me just the way I am. Who I am in Jesus Christ is enough. I have nothing to prove. It's because of the gift of God's grace that I am free to serve him, free to indulge the skills, time and opportunity he has given me.
  
• It's not my job to motivate people. I've wasted too much of my life trying to convince people to serve God in the way I've decided they should serve. All the while, God was working in and through people all around me. I'm done trying to change people's values. I'm done trying to get them to march to my agenda. Instead, I seek to help those who are already serving God and who want to serve him more effectively. I invite those who want to serve God but don't know how to start. I encourage those through whom God is already accomplishing his will.
  
• It's not my job to bring God's kingdom to fulfillment. Unfortunately, I've too often acted as if it was.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

This Is What I’m Talking About

I posted two diagrams of models that people use to think about how things get done in the Kingdom of God (Fool-Proof Scientific Church Management & An Alternative Model).

Brant Hansen makes a similar point in his own patented manner.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

The Busy Pastor

The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront…. [It is] a blasphemous anxiety to do God's work for him.
I am busy because I am vain. I want to appear important. Significant. What better way than to be busy? The incredible hours, the crowded schedule, and the heavy demands on my time are proof to myself — and to all who will notice — that I am important.
How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?

Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor

It takes courage to avoid the performance trap. It also takes faith, faith that God will accomplish his purpose.

If we pastors are proclaiming grace, shouldn't we also be demonstrating it by the way we live?

So what should a pastor do with all this extra time?

One important role of a pastor is to listen:

Pastoral listening requires unhurried leisure, even if it's only for five minutes. Leisure is a quality of spirit, not a quantity of time. Only in that ambiance of leisure do persons know they are listened to with absolute seriousness, treated with dignity and importance. Speaking to people does not have the same personal intensity as listening to them. The question I put to myself is not "How many people have you spoken to about Christ this week?" but "How many people have you listened to in Christ this week?" The number of persons listened to must necessarily be less than the number spoken to. Listening to a story always takes more time than delivering a message, so I must discard my compulsion to count, to compile the statistics that will justify my existence. I can't listen if I'm busy. When my schedule is crowded, I'm not free to listen: I have to keep my next appointment; I have to get to the next meeting.

Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor

If you are a pastor, stop acting as if you are indispensible. If you are a parishioner, free your pastor from your own and others' unrealistic expectations. Let's all learn how to live a grace-filled life.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Unhealthy Numbers

From the physician's point of view, the patient was reduced to a bunch of numbers. Moreover, the numbers were not organized by symptoms or diagnoses: they were organized by what tests were run and which laboratory within the hospital had processed the results. The patient's history — the record of past events and healthcare — was in a different location than current test results. Current results were in a different place than past results. Different hospitals might have different laboratories, so their results would be organized differently. But the attending and resident physicians and nurses were experts at piecing together a mental model of the state of the patient from all these numbers. Or so they said: evidence is difficult to come by.

Don Norman describes his experience observing hospitals in "A Fetish for Numbers: Hospital Care."

Of course, the reason for all these numbers is to improve patient care. Yet the result seems to be quite different:

There were so many medical devices, so many readouts and displays, that I could not even see the patient until someone walked over and pointed. Now this was an infant ward, so this particular patient was tiny, but even so this is a good illustration of modern medicine: From the point of view of the physicians, the patient is a set of test results and numerical readouts. The patient as a person tends to be forgotten (emphasis added).

In another hospital, Norman observed the following incident:

The attending physician would stand outside of the patient's door and listen to the review of the test results by all the residents. They would then discuss the results and make further recommendations. Then, as we all left to go to the next doorway and the next patient, the attending physician would knock on the open door, stick his head in and say, "How are you doing today, Mr. Forbes?" That was the extent of patient interaction.

With all this focus on numbers, the patient gets lost.

Scientists measure what they can measure and pronounce the rest to be unimportant. But the most important parts of life are qualitative. One of the physicians on my study team told us that it can take as long as 20 minutes to fill out all the required forms while she is in front of the patient, yet she is only allowed 15 minutes to attend to each patient.

It takes more time to fill out forms than she is allowed for each patient. There is no time left for real patient interaction.

Obviously, health care requires the collection and organization of numbers. But even so, more numbers do not equate to better care. If this is true in the hospital, how much more must it be true in the church?

Doug Jacoby addresses the number fetish in the church:

Have you ever noticed policemen on the highways out in force during the last couple of days of the month? Like state troopers and salesmen at month end, many, many of our ministers are more "urgent," "care more" about the lost, and strive harder to "make their goals" as the calendar month draws to an end. I believe that many of our leaders sense this, and not a few of the membership at large question motives when we become unusually intense in the final five or ten days of the month. Something about this is very wrong. It's not a Christlike behavior. We are not a corps of salesmen! We are ambassadors of Christ who believe in total disclosure of the truth, who espouse integrity, and who have Jesus as our model and our master.

But some will say, "Keeping statistics on church growth is a biblical principle. Just look at the records recorded in Acts." Take a look at the statements about numbers and "growth" in Luke's account of the early Church:

• In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) (Acts 1:15).
  
• Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day (Acts 2:41).
  
• And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved (Acts 2:47).
  
• But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand (Acts 4:4).
  
• More and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number (Acts 5:14).
  
• In those days when the number of disciples was increasing… (Acts 6:1).
  
• So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith (Acts 6:7).
  
• Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord (Acts 9:31).
  
• The Lord's hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord (Acts 11:21).
  
• [Barnabas] was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord (Acts 11:24).
  
• At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed (Acts 14:1).
  
• They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples (Acts 14:21).
  
• So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers (Acts 16:5).
  
• Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women (Acts 17:4).
  
• Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men (Acts 17:12).
  
• A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others (Acts 17:34).
  

At first, this list seems to provide overwhelming support for the "biblical principle" of statistical analysis.

But a closer look shows something very different.

• Only three verses mention a specific number (1:15, 2:41, 4:4).
  
• Two of those are obviously round numbers (2:41, 4:4).
  
• The other number seems also to be an estimate (1:15).
  
• These are all statements of fact. There is no indication that the Apostles used any sort of accounting system to measure their effectiveness.
  
• This was the very beginning of the Church. It is dangerous to assume that everything that occurred then should be made normative for all churches, everywhere, in all times.
  
• It is anachronistic to think that the Apostles had anything more than a general idea of how many people were in the church at any one time. (In other words, the early versions of Microsoft Excel did not run efficiently on clay tablets and parchment scrolls.)
  
• There is no indication that the Apostles spent time developing a strategic plan, much less that they used statistical analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of such plans.
  

I am not arguing that any use of numbers is wrong. But I am arguing that a focus on numbers can quickly lead to serious problems. A few of these might be

• Assuming that what we do is the determining factor that produces the "results"
  
• Reducing all aspects of ministry to factors that can be measured
  
• Focusing on activities that seem to affect the numbers that are being measured
  
• Neglecting activities that don't seem to directly improve the "stats"
  
• Reducing ministry exclusively to "doing"
  
• Denigrating any ministry that does not show "growth"
  

The parables that Jesus tells in Luke 15 are often cited as evidence that "numbers represent people." However, they could just as easily be understood as a total disregard of "numbers" in favor of individuals who "don't count." Too often, numbers don't represent people as much as they reduce living, breathing, people to cold, hard data.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

An Alternative Model

In a previous post, I presented my depiction of the typical mental model used by most Evangelical church leaders.

Today I offer an alternative model. This model is not perfect or even refined. It is simply a beginning point for discussion. Please let me know if you have any comments, critiques or suggestions for improvement.


Pastor Rod
"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Pretentious Planning

Strategic planning is seen as an essential tool for any enterprise. New business ventures need a business plan before they can attract investors and obtain loans. This same thinking thrives in the church.

Yet this tool is not so benign.

Alan Roxburgh writes:

The work of the Spirit is always greater than our imagined worlds and that God must always be in the process of breaking the boundaries we set up to define and circumscribe the limits of the church and its activities. In this sense God's purposes are often other than those which we establish and embed in our institutions. This is not to criticize or judge these institutions but to suggest there is always a dynamic, eschatological tension in all our organizing and planning. It even suggests that, at least from time to time, the Big Idea we have and around which we align all our resources and strategies as schools can miss what God is about in the world.

But in a time of discontinuous change it is no longer the Big Ideas or experts or the few who are able to make the kinds discernment and decisions about planning and actions that get at the questions of what God is up to in the world. When boundaries begin to shift or frameworks come into question this liminal-type of situation requires the capacity for a whole community to be brought into the conversation about innovation and planning. Without this engagement across the system in a mutually critical dialogue the default to strategic planning methods will generally result in brilliant plans that, in the end, leave the system essentially where it was before the planning began.

I would suggest that when strategic planning is the primary mode of making actions within social systems formed by the narrative of the Gospels that reveal this God then it is inevitable that the other, whether faculty, or the students we form or the local churches we seek to resource, becomes objectified, a means, end or function of something that is other than what God is about in the world.

Part of the problem with strategic planning is the assumption that we can create the future we want by managing our current resources. And those resources, remarkably, include human beings, reducing them to little more than objects that we manipulate to achieve our long-term goals. Even God becomes a "raw material."

This doesn't mean that we just fly by the seat of our pants, though real life often feels this way. We need to prepare for the future. We need to be intentional about what we do and what we choose not to do. But most of all, our job is to discern what God is up to and to be willing to participate in that as opportunities present themselves.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Missional Geography

Alan Roxburgh gives us a Missional Geography lesson:

As I listen to how suburban church leaders speak, I am more and more aware that in their programs for growth and multi-site digitally-fed main speakers they have little sense that geography matters.

The local, the neighborhood, is the place of God's presence and where the Spirit is at work among people.

I am convinced that for Christians to understand how the Biblical narrative enters and participates in the transformation of culture they must grasp that geography is everything! Once we live into the Incarnation we are committed to place, to particularity; space and time are not containers but the reality within which God's transformative grace is worked out.

We are seeking to reclaim the suburbs for the kingdom, not curse them as so many do.

Forget the stars and the gurus; stop hungering after the trendies of the moment; enter the local and the ordinary, listen to what is happening on the ground in your own place and context because this is where God's future is bubbling up. Pay attention to those who actually work on the ground rather then the gurus who try to think great thoughts in heads that are so disconnected from the ordinary places and times where most of us live.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Foolproof Scientific Church Management

Here is a schematic of the mental model most church leaders have for operating a church.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Missional Order vs. Church Planting

In the introduction to this Allelon netcast, Pernell Goodyear says, "The way that we've done church planting for the past number of decades has been about moving rock stars into neighborhoods and marketing this big attractional thing that people come to, growing our division of the church as an organization."

David Fitch, pastor of Life on the Vine, talks about church planting in post-Christendom:

We are no longer living in a Christian society.

We used to plant churches as organizations. You pay somebody to go set up shop.

Now the issue is survival. I do not believe that you can plant a church in three years in post-Christendom.

We're going from extending an organization to survival.

A missional order says we will gather together people and we will commit to being a body and we will embed ourselves in this location. We will incarnate Christ in this location. We will build relationships with those—we will look for those who are hurting. We will look for the poor. We will look for the struggling. We will look for ways of connecting. And we can take forever, if we have to.

He has more to say. Check out the video.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"